This speaks to D'Antoni's inability to cultivate an identity for these Lakers. Bryant wouldn't come right out and declare D'Antoni's system a failure, but he did speak to a need for the coach to find ways to flex everyone's strengths. D'Antoni has a long, stubborn history of forcing talent to fit into his system, and right now that is clearly playing a part in the unraveling of this season.

"We need to go back to basics," Bryant said. "We need to put guys in positions to do what they do best. We need to strip it down. Steve is best in pick-and-roll. Pau is best in the post. I'm best from the free-throw line extended down. Let's go back to basics.

Ass. Clown.

I'm fairly certain they'll trade Gasol & bring in players to fit D'Antoni's system. They'll run, they'll win a couple, perhaps even make the playoffs..then their tired, beat legs will let teams score all over them because they've spent all their energy on the offensive end. Everyone claims D'Antoni can't teach defense and then they try it all over again next year. Hah.

Good article that pretty much sums it up, though that makes it a rather gloomy read if you're a Lakers fan. Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe also discuss the situation here on Grantland. On Jim Buss:

He's also reinvented himself on Twitter and Facebook, given a few compelling interviews and established himself as the premier "I don't give a shit, I'm old, I'm gonna be gone soon, I'm just saying what I think" athlete in sports. Big year for Kobe. Going forward, it's going to be fascinating to see what matters to him more — retiring as a lifelong Laker with five rings and somewhere between 35,000 and 38,000 points, or chasing that sixth ring somewhere else (and matching Jordan).

I don't think he will win another ring with the Lakers, and here's why: They're an absolute mess behind the scenes. Jimmy Buss is like James Dolan 2.0 — it's like the Dolan Experience all over again, only if Dolan had even fewer credentials and couldn't stop feuding with other members of his family. You know why that Phil Jackson situation was handled so poorly last November? Because Jimmy Buss has an enormous complex about Phil and his sister Jeannie, that's why. For one thing, Jeannie is well respected around the NBA as a sharp thinker; people always assumed that Dr. Buss would turn the Lakers over to her. But apparently, Buss wanted one of his sons to assume control because of the always-frightening reason of Jeannie already has something for herself, I want one of my sons to have something, too.

That's how Jimmy Buss ended up in charge of the Lakers. You can't even find decent information about him on the Internet. Seriously, surf around online and try to figure out what Jimmy Buss has been doing since college, or even if he graduated from college. It's murky. He's not nearly as accomplished as his sister … and that's an understatement. Now he's running the Lakers instead of Jeanie, to the utter confusion of just about everyone. So what happened when his sister's boyfriend positioned himself as the savior of this year's Lakers team, and Lakers fans were clamoring for him to come back? Not only did Jimmy Buss swerve against the grain and pick a different coach, he had GM Mitch Kupchak call his sister's boyfriend late at night to drop that bomb on him … presumably as his sister was lying in bed next to him! This wasn't a coaching hire as much as a rejected plot from Parenthood.

Zach, I will leave you with this: If we've learned anything from professional sports over the years, it's that nobody can inflict more damage on a franchise than an incompetent owner. Just look at how the Maloofs destroyed basketball in Sacramento, or what James Dolan did to the Ewing era, or what Donald Sterling did for his first 25 years with the Clippers. There's a really good chance that Jimmy Buss might be THAT bad. And if that's the case, I guarantee Kobe is already coming up with an exit plan. We will see.

Several players spoke up, including Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant, the 17-year veterans who make up the Lakers' backcourt. Bryant asked Dwight Howard if he was bothered by playing alongside him, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the meeting.

Bryant acknowledged he could be "hard to play with," according to the Times, and challenged Howard to speak up if he had a problem with it.

Howard was "despondent" and did not offer much of a reply to Bryant, according to a team source.

One example of the rocky relationship between the two Western Conference All-Star starters, according to a league source, was a game this season when Howard harped to a teammate about the disparity between his and Bryant's shots while sitting on the bench. The teammate called Bryant over so Howard could tell it to Bryant's face, but Howard refused to speak up.

D'Antoni said it's an issue of the entire team coming together.

"We've got an All-Star team out there," D'Antoni said. "Have you ever watched an All-Star Game? It's God-awful because everybody gets the ball, they go 1-on-1 and then they play no defense. That's our team. That's us. We're an All-Star team and we haven't learned there's a pecking order. There's the one guy, the two guy, the three guy and the four guy. It might not be the same guy every night, but somebody has got to accept being the fourth guy. If you've been the first guy all your life, that's hard to accept. That's what happens in All-Star (Games) and that's what happened with us. Like I said, with today's meeting, hopefully we've overcome a little bit of that. I hope. We'll see."

We've got an All-Star team out there," D'Antoni said. "Have you ever watched an All-Star Game? It's God-awful because everybody gets the ball, they go 1-on-1 and then they play no defense. That's our team.

We're an All-Star team and we haven't learned there's a pecking order. There's the one guy, the two guy, the three guy and the four guy. It might not be the same guy every night, but somebody has got to accept being the fourth guy. If you've been the first guy all your life, that's hard to accept. That's what happens in All-Star (Games) and that's what happened with us. Like I said, with today's meeting, hopefully we've overcome a little bit of that. I hope. We'll see."

I'd suggest that as the head coach, it's D'Antoni's responsibility to sort that out and get his players to accept and be productive in those roles.

In all fairness, the All-Star comparison is also a little off. Even with more stars and less practice time together, most All-Star teams seem to play better and more cohesively than the Lakers have so far this season.

Jamison: "Let's just have fun, man, and enjoy this journey and just pull for each other and realize that this is a special team. The first half of this season has been an embarrassment. We've been the laughingstock of the NBA. So, let's turn that embarrassment into one of the best stories in sports history and turn things around."

That's something you'd probably want to hear from the leaders of the team but probably it's easier for him to say since less is at stake for him.

Jamison: "Let's just have fun, man, and enjoy this journey and just pull for each other and realize that this is a special team. The first half of this season has been an embarrassment. We've been the laughingstock of the NBA. So, let's turn that embarrassment into one of the best stories in sports history and turn things around."

That's something you'd probably want to hear from the leaders of the team but probably it's easier for him to say since less is at stake for him.

That's something that I'd want to hear Emilio Estevez saying in The Mighty Ducks. Not a 15-year NBA veteran.

At the moment, the only thing special about this Lakers team is that they're in the running to be one of the most disappointing/underachieving teams we've ever seen, given the talent they have and even accounting for injuries.

Nothing short of a miracle can save the Lakers now. Lakers magically curing their TO woes and gelling to defense. Being able to flip Gasol and MWP for younger faster players and being able to flip Duhon for a prospect player to fit D'Antoni's system and get some tax relief.

I don't see why they can't figure out how to spread the possessions with 80+ possessions. The biggest problem I see is that they have four players who have had success while they played WITH THE BALL, and now three of them have to figure out how to be more effective without it. you can't just pic and roll Nash all day, you can't just high post Gasol all day or post Howard all day and you can't just give it to Kobe and expect him to shoot you out of your old and slow defense.

If I were the GM, I would put D12, Nash, MWP, and Gasol on the block just to see the media reaction while distracting other teams with what they think is a gold mine.

Buss passed on the Lakers' glorious championship legacy to attach his franchise to the desert mirage of D'Antoni and Nash, a reunion tour born of a one-dimensional, gimmick offense and a point guard pushing 39 years old.

This 106-93 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday at FedEx Forum was one more installment in a debacle of a season that the mere presence of D'Antoni worsens every day.

Under Jackson, the Lakers would've played through Gasol, Howard and Bryant in the post, would've dictated terms through the strengths of the franchise's Hall of Fame players. Under Jackson, the Lakers would've had a leader of men to gather them out of this rubble.

Buss doubled down on the wrong coach, and wrong player. D'Antoni and Nash are busts, unable to bring the systematic and connective threads to a lineup that they were charged to regenerate.

The Lakers haven't won a game outside of Staples Center in a month. These Lakers resemble D'Antoni in every way: Mumbling, soft and shrouded in marketed mythology.

D'Antoni is far stronger with the glib quotes than he is substantive solutions.

Howard needs Bryant to play that part, because D'Antoni has forever been part passive-aggressive and fully non-confrontational.

As the New York Knicks' coach, D'Antoni issued a clear stance in organizational discussions on a possible pursuit of Howard: He wasn't a fan. He told Knicks front-office staff stories about how the elders of USA Basketball preferred Tyson Chandler to Howard, and that the Knicks would be wise to adopt that thinking, a source with knowledge of the conversations told Yahoo! Sports.

In so many ways, Nash made D'Antoni, but he can't bail him out anymore. The Lakers are burying themselves, deeper and deeper, and the coach doesn't have the stomach, nor the brass, to elevate them out of the mess. His system is flawed for this franchise, and beyond that, he brings nothing to a basketball team.

Somehow, the Los Angeles Lakers doubled down on the washed-up, banner-less legacy of the Phoenix Suns, and yet somehow they still wonder how everything could've unraveled this way. Mike D'Antoni was never the return of Showtime, but merely a mirage that came out of the desert and ultimately will blow out of Los Angeles like tumbleweed.

As the New York Knicks' coach, D'Antoni issued a clear stance in organizational discussions on a possible pursuit of Howard: He wasn't a fan. He told Knicks front-office staff stories about how the elders of USA Basketball preferred Tyson Chandler to Howard, and that the Knicks would be wise to adopt that thinking, a source with knowledge of the conversations told Yahoo! Sports.

I'm not even looking at the playoffs right now as a fan, I just want them to be able to string together a couple of strong wins to get team morale up again. The standing around flailing of the arms, the barking at eachother and the rolling of the eyes has to go before they can even begin thinking about the playoffs.

And Dwight needs to seriously stop getting stripped, that's one thing I loved about Bynum, he kept the ball high and had good hands.

pleasantly surprising. The starting front court was barely efficient, but they edged out the thunder, in the fourth quarter no less. From what I remember, from the losses the Lakers have had against the Thunder was decided in the second half or in the fourth, so this is something really good that they can hold on to a win. And the rate of TO to assists as a team was great. And in the twilight years of his career, for at least two games, kobe is playing like the Jason Kidd of old. Gasol is playing the best basketball of this season off the bench. The Kobe and the Lakers should keep this up. Dwight still has to make his free throws though.

Kobe has just passed Michael Jordan in career assists this game. I wonder if that is the reason why he went berserk getting those assists. But if they win with that then every Laker fan on the planet will have smiles on their faces.

Jackal wrote:Dwight needs to seriously stop getting stripped, that's one thing I loved about Bynum, he kept the ball high and had good hands.

And that is why Dwight isn't really that effective in D'Antoni's pick and roll even if he has Nash to help him. He doesn't have the hands like Amar'e (or the range) that made that pick and roll in D'Antoni's Suns effective.

Pau Gasol: "I don't know if we are playing D'Antoni's system much right now; we are kind of running our own system a bit, with a slower pace, putting the ball in Kobe Bryant's hands a lot, setting picks from the low post and distributing the ball from there very well. We'll see if we can continue like this."

Andrew wrote:Westbrook's poor night from the field certainly helped out a little, but a great win for the Lakers. Still a long road ahead of them, though.

agreed, the Thunder had a tough road schedule. But of course before the game, I was preparing myself for the possibility that they get demolished by the Thunder after what was a good win in utah.

Hope this great passing run continues for Kobe, something in the back of my mind tells me this new found love for passing lasts only until the next game where he can't connect on a few passes and gets frustrated or until the all-star game where he tries to 1-up every other player and try to dump a ton of pts just to prove himself.

Even though it gets more precarious with each loss, making the Playoffs is still feasible. There are a few teams immediately ahead of the Lakers in the West who could fade down the stretch, leaving the door open for them to make a solid run and get into the postseason. However, even if they get there, I would suggest that their run ends in the first round.

As a low seed they won't have home court advantage, certainly an issue given their record on the road this year. They'll obviously also be facing one of the top teams in the West, all of whom have point guards that present a big problem for Steve Nash. I don't know how long you can have Kobe guard them either, since he'll be expending a lot of energy chasing them around, which is going to start affecting his performance at the offensive end. I think they're good enough and have enough talent to avoid being swept, taking a win at home, but they're probably out in five in the first round if they do rally to make the Playoffs.

1-pt win over the pistons.I was thinking before the game that stuckey would try to take many bad shots and cost them the game, but instead the two teams matched up well. So has it come to this? The Lakers are about as good as the pistons team trying to rebuild? haha.I was expecting Drummond to be unstoppable from off the bench since the Lakers doesn't have much to throw against him, but instead it was Will Bynum who bolstered the bench. And we see again that 3rd qtr collapse.

With how thin the Lakers front court has gotten as of late, I am glad that they could still win this one.

yep, no doubt that was a good win for your team, but too bad pau might not even help the "8th-seed-playoff-run", sad to hear that tho. But hey, look at the bright side, this might open-up the rooster, and "inspire" them, you just don't know, hoping to see them play in the post season.

You laugh at me 'cos I'm different.I laugh at you 'cos youre all the same

When Bryant and Howard hung up on a pre-trade deadline call a year ago, the suspicions of a toxic mix were confirmed with a most uncomfortable conversation. They had different visions on the way Howard would fit into the Lakers, which promised to compound the gulf between them as people. They were going to win with the Lakers and tolerate each other; or lose and develop a deep disdain.

On his way out of the Garden, out of a humiliating 116-95 loss to the Boston Celtics, Bryant returned a clichéd question – "Are Dwight and you on the same page?" – without a clichéd response.With a bemused face and a shrug, Bryant told Yahoo! Sports: "What page is there to be on? Defend. Rebound…"

He shrugged again.

"I mean, what else is on the page?"

Truth be told, the Lakers are in deep, deep trouble – 3½ games back of the eighth spot in the Western Conference. They've lost Pau Gasol for several weeks and could be completely out of the playoff chase once he returns to the floor. Howard was out of synch in his return, fouling out in 28 minutes with little, if no, impact on the game.

More and more, it's become clear that Howard won't be his dominant self this season. The torn labrum could need surgery this summer, a league source said, and Howard couldn't even guarantee he'd feel strong enough to play in Charlotte on Friday night. From a herniated disk in his back to the torn labrum, from the pressures inside and outside the organization to get back on the floor, Howard has been reduced to a shell of himself.

Summing it up in a paragraph:

Part of the problem of Howard's clowning act is that people don't take him seriously in times of crisis. It's easier to doubt his toughness, tenacity, when they're watching him grab the microphone to do impressions on team charters or booming farts in the locker room. Bryant never wanted Howard's disposition to rule the day in the Lakers' locker room, never wanted his own culture of seriousness and duty to be undermined with the frivolity that comes with Howard.

A quick Google search reveals that yes, that is a thing with Dwight Howard.

No, I believe him about his injuries, it's just that on the offensive end he's such a clutz. He has no back to the basket or face up game, he just sort of bang-bang flips it up there hoping to be bailed out by a ref or goes bang-bang-stripped and then looks at the ref. He's not very good at catching passes from P&R's and can't pass that well either.

Dick move by the assclown to make it a point to say "he's been cleared for a while now", if the guy says he can't play, he can't play. That's the problem with D'Antoni, he does nothing to want you to respect him. He's a prick and a dumb ass.

stereoxide wrote:Show me that Kobe has two instances of crying through an injury.

that's not the point. Those so called injury that Kobe suffered were minors. All those Kobe bandage on arms, pinkie news, getting massage during half time, having a cold are playing through full of injuries? Gimme a break. Howard having those injuries wouldn't even make news. Howard and Gasol has more severe injury that they're dealing with.

stereoxide wrote:Show me that Kobe has two instances of crying through an injury.

that's not the point. Those so called injury that Kobe suffered were minors. All those Kobe bandage on arms, pinkie news, getting massage during half time, having a cold are playing through full of injuries? Gimme a break. Howard having those injuries wouldn't even make news. Howard and Gasol has more severe injury that they're dealing with.

i think though that the only reason that people are saying that howard is crying through this one is because of the criticality of having howard play already when he has been cleared to play. how hurt was kobe with his injuries is anybody's guess, but i have never heard of kobe not playing when he is cleared to play. rather we have seen kobe play even when the conditioning staff is practically going on record begging him to rest.